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MP All Models The end of Mac Pro
- Thread starter Mac3Duser
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In traditional workstations, memory bandwidth and integrity (out-of-band ECC) are characteristic features.
I would argue with Apple's ARM platforms, Apple blurs the lines. Memory bandwidth is already superb, more than most users (at different tiers) would need. Integrity is helped by on-die ECC in DDR5 and beyond. Since DRAM chips are very closely bonded to the SOC, transfer errors are likely non-existent.
I think the natural step for Apple to implement ECC will be in-band ECC, using part of the capacity (LPDDR being cheap) and bandwidth (in abundance so far). When there is such need, Apple could add it in their future SoC's memory controller.
Worth mentioning Apple just enabled RDMA over Thunderbolt in macOS 26.2.
This enables a programming paradigm for parallel workloads offloading to a cluster of Mac's. Such workloads could be AI inference, 3D rendering & etc.
Now comes an interesting question. When the RDMA paradigm is mature in its ecosystem and if there are enough users willing to pay, a future Mac Pro could be a box of housing multiple boards with each being an separate Mac. All interconnected through RDMA over PCIe or some sort of other physical connectivity appropriate at the time.
Mac Pro in the traditional sense is dead. But don't rule out a new-era Mac Pro.
I would argue with Apple's ARM platforms, Apple blurs the lines. Memory bandwidth is already superb, more than most users (at different tiers) would need. Integrity is helped by on-die ECC in DDR5 and beyond. Since DRAM chips are very closely bonded to the SOC, transfer errors are likely non-existent.
I think the natural step for Apple to implement ECC will be in-band ECC, using part of the capacity (LPDDR being cheap) and bandwidth (in abundance so far). When there is such need, Apple could add it in their future SoC's memory controller.
Worth mentioning Apple just enabled RDMA over Thunderbolt in macOS 26.2.
This enables a programming paradigm for parallel workloads offloading to a cluster of Mac's. Such workloads could be AI inference, 3D rendering & etc.
Now comes an interesting question. When the RDMA paradigm is mature in its ecosystem and if there are enough users willing to pay, a future Mac Pro could be a box of housing multiple boards with each being an separate Mac. All interconnected through RDMA over PCIe or some sort of other physical connectivity appropriate at the time.
Mac Pro in the traditional sense is dead. But don't rule out a new-era Mac Pro.
An M4 Studio Ultra would have been a real game-changer I feel.
Obviously Apple have huge stocks of M3 Ultras, and committed dealers are still shifting these at premium prices. 3.2Ghz is now a difficult sell.
After the huge impact of the M4 4Ghz single-core Minis, an M5 Ultra Studio should be an utter monster - with M6 not long after.
But what do you do as a company when faced with the prospect of your latest tech product making everything in your full warehouse look dated?
I presume the markup and profit is sufficient for them to sit on stuff, sell latest stuff to whoever will pay the premium at the time of their choosing - and eventually shift lesser stuff to locations that are behind the curve? However much posturing there is of ‘smash, bang, wallop’.
Not a criticism, just the law of the jungle.
Obviously Apple have huge stocks of M3 Ultras, and committed dealers are still shifting these at premium prices. 3.2Ghz is now a difficult sell.
After the huge impact of the M4 4Ghz single-core Minis, an M5 Ultra Studio should be an utter monster - with M6 not long after.
But what do you do as a company when faced with the prospect of your latest tech product making everything in your full warehouse look dated?
I presume the markup and profit is sufficient for them to sit on stuff, sell latest stuff to whoever will pay the premium at the time of their choosing - and eventually shift lesser stuff to locations that are behind the curve? However much posturing there is of ‘smash, bang, wallop’.
Not a criticism, just the law of the jungle.
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I don't really like the Mac Studio. It's mainly because it's not easy to open and it doesn't have multiple NVMe ports that can be swapped out. For me, it's not a workstation.
Unified memory, okay; AI on a large amount of RAM, okay; I can see people saying that a Mac Studio can compete with the Nvidia DGX or an RTX 6000 Blackwell 96GB, but for me, that's not how it works.
A workstation is a motherboard, a chipset, and a processor with a lot of PCIe lanes. I'm repeating myself a bit, but that's what it's about. PCIe lanes and PCIe slots. Trying to route everything through Thunderbolt and external enclosures isn't a good solution for me. I prefer a solution is a case with a large power supply that powers everything inside, and cards that can be swapped out depending on the task. So, PCIe cards with NVMe drives, Ethernet cards, graphics cards, cards for musicians, and so on...
Indeed, if we can have a case with two M5 Ultra motherboards to create an internal cluster powered by a single power supply and driving multiple NVMe slots, we can imagine a new type of machine. That's becoming interesting, but I'd be more inclined to want a macOS that remains open to Intel (and AMD) and accepts AMD and Nvidia drivers.
Unified memory, okay; AI on a large amount of RAM, okay; I can see people saying that a Mac Studio can compete with the Nvidia DGX or an RTX 6000 Blackwell 96GB, but for me, that's not how it works.
A workstation is a motherboard, a chipset, and a processor with a lot of PCIe lanes. I'm repeating myself a bit, but that's what it's about. PCIe lanes and PCIe slots. Trying to route everything through Thunderbolt and external enclosures isn't a good solution for me. I prefer a solution is a case with a large power supply that powers everything inside, and cards that can be swapped out depending on the task. So, PCIe cards with NVMe drives, Ethernet cards, graphics cards, cards for musicians, and so on...
Indeed, if we can have a case with two M5 Ultra motherboards to create an internal cluster powered by a single power supply and driving multiple NVMe slots, we can imagine a new type of machine. That's becoming interesting, but I'd be more inclined to want a macOS that remains open to Intel (and AMD) and accepts AMD and Nvidia drivers.
Good points there.
Except that this new desktop beast would surely have silent liquid-cooling, and a built-in UPS, with an external battery?